Ashland Says Top Iranians Sought to Use Stolen Data

By JEFF GERTH, Special to the New York Times

Published: December 10, 1988

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9—
Ashland Oil Inc. has charged that top officials of the Iranian Government were involved in a conspiracy to use stolen internal Ashland documents in a $500 million lawsuit that Iran filed against Ashland in 1985, according to court records unsealed today.

Earlier this year criminal charges of interstate transportation of stolen documents were filed against four people: Orin E. Atkins, the former chairman of Ashland; a former Ashland vice president; a lawyer, and an oil consultant who had worked for the company.

The records that were unsealed provide the first public details about the charges that top Iranian officials, including the Speaker of the Parliament, Hojatolislam Hashemi Rafsanjani, had knowledge of and access to the stolen documents.

The disclosures, if proved, could significantly affect the ability of Iran to obtain the more than $500 million it is seeking in its suit, which is scheduled to go to trial next year. A major part of the case involves seven tankers of oil that Ashland acquired from Iran during the turbulent days of the Iranian revolution in 1979. Ashland, which contends that Iran breached its side of the deal, did not pay for the tankers. Customs Service Inquiry

The United States Customs Service, which investigated the case after receiving the results of Ashland's own inquiry, once hoped to implicate Iranian officials, but ended the inquiry because officials concluded that it was unlikely that Iranians linked to the case could be lured to the United States by undercover investigators.

Mr. Atkins has pleaded not guilty in the case, but cooperated with Customs officials in implicating one of the others arrested in the case.

Ashland contends that its ability to defend the suit and prosecute its own counterclaim have been seriously damaged because the National Iranian Oil Company, the state-owned company that brought the suit, ''benefited in its entire litigation from its massive intrusion into Ashland's inner counsels.'' Ashland's Counterclaim

In its amended counterclaim that was unsealed today, Ashland said National Iranian Oil was aware that former Ashland executives had breached their fiduciary duties by stealing the privileged and confidential documents and ''making their contents available to N.I.O.C.''

The attorneys in Washington and in Jackson, Miss., who represent National Iranian Oil in the lawsuit did not return phone calls today. A secretary for the Iranian oil company's Washington attorney, Stephen M. Truitt, said Mr. Truitt was in Iran and not available to discuss the case.

United States Magistrate John R. Countiss 3d unsealed the Ashland charges today in Federal court in Jackson. He also upheld Ashland's request to depose various Iranian officials, including Gholem Reza Aghazadeh, the Iranian oil minister, in the civil case. But Mr. Countiss denied Ashland's request to take testimony from Mr. Rafsanjani.

According to the court papers, Mr. Rafsanjani received several communications about the oil dispute, including a secret report in early 1985 that detailed how original Ashland documents were removed from company archives by ''a very important oil figure who held a key position in Ashland'' and were then made available for use in Iran's dispute with Ashland. Documents in London

The report to Mr. Rafsanjani recommended that top lawyers from National Iranian Oil go to London for examine the documents, and the speaker's office forwarded the report to Iran's oil minister at the time, Mohammed Gharazi, Ashland said in its filing. Iranian lawyers subsequently examined the papers in London on several occasions, but not until Mr. Gharazi wrote back to Mr. Rafsanjani about the oil dispute on April 25, 1985, according to the papers.

The ''hundreds of stolen Ashland documents'' at issue in the case include internal Ashland memorandums about the case, correspondence between Ashland and its banks about the oil shipments, and legal material and documents that Ashland contends is protected by attorney-client privilege, according to the court papers.

Ashland said that a conspiracy to use the stolen documents began in 1984 and that the scheme involved secret bank accounts, dummy corporations, code names, fake invoices as well as the involvement of lawyers in Britain, the United States, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

Though there were various discussions and draft agreements about the payment of money for the stolen documents and other consulting services, including a proposed fee of $10 million, there is no public evidence that any money changed hands in the deal, according to the papers. Difficulties Discussed

At various times, there appear to have been discussions among the Iranians and their lawyers over the difficulties stemming from the use of the inside information.

One outside lawyer told National Iranian Oil on Sept. 19, 1985, that its dealings with the consulting firm involving Mr. Atkins and others could subject it to ''a claim for misappropriation of a trade secret or interference with contractual relations or a confidential relationship,'' Ashland's court papers said.

The lawyer also ''adverted to the practical difficulties in using stolen documents as proof'' in his September 1985 communication.

A mysterious Cayman Islands corporation moves in and out of the account presented by Ashland in the court documents. The corporation, International Consulting Services Ltd., was apparently established for Mr. Atkins and others ''to act as the vehicle for providing 'consulting services' to N.I.O.C.,'' including access to the Ashland documents in question, the court filing said.

Ashland's counterclaim maintains that more than a dozen Iranian officials were involved in the attempt to use the services of International Consulting Services. Those named include a number of National Iranian Oil lawyers who inspected the misappropriated documents in London, as well as other top officials in Teheran who received reports on the dispute, including the head of the office of the president of Iran, the petroleum minister and the head of Iran's Bureau of International Legal Services. Sale of Arms

The Iranian oil dispute has a curious intersection with the secret sale of American arms to Iran.

Roy Furmark, the former Ashland consultant who was charged in the case and who knew Mr. Atkins, was involved with the stolen documents at the same time he was involved in the sale of American arms to Iran and a potential $1 billion purchase of crude oil from Iran. Mr. Furmark was arrested last summer on charges of interstate transportation of stolen Ashland documents and has pleaded not guilty but has cooperated with Customs agents, according to public records.

Cyrus Hashemi, an Iranian-American living in London, introduced Mr. Furmark to in-house lawyers for National Iranian Oil, according to the Ashland court papers. The papers go on to say that these Iranian lawyers spent three to four days in Mr. Hashemi's London office ''reviewing privileged and confidential documents illegally taken from Ashland.''